by Mark Lukens
Cromartie just nodded.
“I heard that expression somewhere,” Abraham said. “Of course I don’t really remember where I heard it …”
“Maybe we should just have a moment of silence for her,” Cromartie suggested. “Like a silent prayer.”
Abraham nodded in agreement and both men bowed their heads and closed their eyes.
A moment later Cromartie touched Abraham’s shoulder. “Let’s get back up there and help Rolle with Butler’s room.”
Cromartie started walking back down the aisle, but he stopped when he realized that Abraham wasn’t following him. He turned back around and saw that Abraham was staring at the wall of storage units like a thought had just occurred to him.
“Abraham?”
The older man didn’t answer; he just looked up at the walls of storage units that towered up to the ceiling on both sides of the aisle. He stepped closer to the wall of storage units to his right. Each storage unit fit together like blocks in a wall, and each unit was covered with a Plexiglas-type material—but the plastic wasn’t clear like the cryochambers were; it had a white film over it so nothing inside could be seen. Abraham tore his rubber gloves off and stuffed them down into the pockets of his pants and then he cupped his hands to the sides of his face and tried to peek through the plastic.
“See anything in there?” Cromartie asked him.
Abraham dropped his hands down from the sides of his face and shook his head. “No.” He looked back at Cromartie. “Every one of these storage units has seeds, plants, or animals in them?”
“That’s what MAC told me.”
“What kind of animals and plants?”
Cromartie swore he saw some kind of hope in Abraham’s eyes. “He didn’t really specify,” he told Abraham.
Abraham nodded and looked at the storage units again. “MAC said there are other ships in this fleet headed to Eden. Just think of all of the storage units on each ship. All of those plants and animals …”
“Enough to start over, I guess. A new Earth.” He recalled the similar conversation he’d had down here with Sanders and he was impatient to get back up to Butler’s room and help Rolle with the cleanup. But something was making Abraham hesitate; some kind of idea seemed to be forming in his mind, like he was struggling to grasp it … to see it clearly.
“There’s got to be a way for us to communicate with those other ships,” Abraham muttered.
“Even if there was, it’s not going to help us,” Cromartie told him. “There won’t be others awake like us. And even if we could contact them, what would we tell them? That they need to convince their computer to turn their ships towards us and rescue us? Possibly jeopardize this whole mission because of us?”
Cromartie watched Abraham who stood in the same spot staring at the wall of storage units in front of him like he was still struggling with the thought that was forming in his mind, his brows knitted in concentration.
“Abraham, we should get going …”
“That’s it!” Abraham said and looked at Cromartie with wide eyes of shock, but there was also a flicker of hope in his expression.
“What?” Cromartie asked.
“These storage units. They’ve got seeds, plants, and animals inside of them. That could be our food.”
Abraham ran his hands across the fronts of the storage units like he was looking for some kind of way to open them, but there wasn’t any kind of door handles anywhere. He jabbed at the buttons on the computer display, and then he ran his fingers over all of the buttons and small computer screens, pawing everything at once.
Nothing happened.
“We need to get these things open!”
Cromartie hurried over to him. “Abraham … calm down.”
Abraham looked up at the dark ceiling with wide eyes. “MAC, we need to get these storage units open!”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible at this time, Abraham,” MAC answered, and the computer’s voice seemed to come from all around them. “The storage units are only to be opened when we reach our destination.”
“But this is an emergency! We need the food inside to survive!”
“I’m sorry, Abraham. These supplies are for the colonists. I can’t allow so many to be in jeopardy to save a few.”
“But it’s your fault we’re even awake!!” Abraham screamed up at the ceiling, his eyes bulging with rage, his face turning red.
“I was programmed to wake you up at this time,” MAC answered.
“That’s your same answer for everything! You’re batshit crazy, that’s what you are!”
“Try to calm down,” Cromartie said in a low voice. His suspicions were correct; MAC had been listening to their conversation down here in the storage level. MAC was probably always listening to them, always monitoring everything they did.
“No, I won’t calm down!” Abraham roared. “We’re all going to starve to death on this stupid ship when there’s more than enough food for us inside these storage units. We could ration everything out. We could still survive and have plenty left over for the colonists.”
Cromartie laid a gentle hand on Abraham’s shoulder, trying to coax him down the aisle and away from the dead body of Butler wrapped up in plastic and tape.
“No!” Abraham continued and jerked away from Cromartie’s hand. “This isn’t right. We’re going to be colonists, too? Aren’t we? I mean we’re the ones who are going to colonize the planet when we get there.” He looked up again at the ceiling high above them, the ceiling lost in the murky shadows. “Isn’t that right, MAC? This food was meant for us when we get to Eden. So why can’t we have it now?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible at this time,” MAC answered. “These units are only to be opened when your destination has been reached.”
Cromartie stared at Abraham, surprised that the older man had turned so wild so suddenly. Abraham had seemed so mild-mannered, so in control of his emotions. But anything could break them mentally—Cromartie had to remember that.
“Don’t argue with MAC,” Cromartie whispered to Abraham, getting right up next to him and whispering in his ear. “That computer’s crazy. We’ll talk about this later when we can be alone. Maybe we can find something to get these storage units open. We could break them open if we have to, pry the doors off.”
“I’m afraid you aren’t allowed to do that,” MAC said from all around them in his eerily tranquil and polite voice. The computer had heard Cromartie’s whispers. “If there is any destruction to the storage units then the air handlers will automatically stop working. The CO2 will build up in a matter of weeks, suffocating all of you.”
Abraham looked like he was about to erupt in a fit of anger and sob at the same time. “You … you piece of shit computer … You want us to die, don’t you? There’s a reason … some kind of reason you want all of us dead!”
“Come on,” Cromartie said. “Calm down, we’ll think of another way.”
“There is no other way!” Abraham snapped at him.
The sound of running feet down the aisle turned their attention to Sanders who was racing towards them. She stopped in front of them, a little out-of-breath from her run. She stared at them with wide eyes, and then she smiled like she had just discovered a secret.
“What is it?” Cromartie asked her.
“You guys need to come back up there to Butler’s room. I just realized that something’s wrong with all of this.”
“What?”
“We need to ask Rolle a very important question.”
TWENTY
Rolle had Butler’s room as clean as he could get it. The blood stains were still in the mattress, but they were a lot lighter now. He had already disposed of the sheets and blankets in the thick trash bags and stowed them away in the back of the storage closet, both of them wrapped up tight with tape. He didn’t know where else to put the trash. It wasn’t like they had a garbage chute on this spaceship.
There’s always the airlock, his mind whispered.<
br />
He was taking one last look around the room when Cromartie, Sanders, and Abraham barged into the room. They all looked wide-eyed and excited, all of them breathing hard.
“Where’s Ward?” Sanders asked.
Rolle’s eyes darted towards the open door. He shrugged. “I don’t know. His room, I guess. He sure didn’t help me with any of this.”
“Did you find the weapon that Butler used to kill herself with?” Sanders asked Rolle with a smile of triumph on her face, like she already knew the answer to the question she had asked.
Cromartie watched Rolle’s expression turn to shock. He seemed to be trying to remember, but then he shook his head no. “No. Now that I think about it, I didn’t find anything.”
“Butler had to have used something to cut her wrists with,” Sanders said. “Did you find a knife in here? A sharp piece of metal? Anything she could’ve used?”
“I didn’t even think about that,” Rolle said. “I didn’t find anything at all in here.”
“And you said Ward found her body?” Cromartie asked.
Rolle glanced at the open doorway again, and then he looked back at Cromartie, Sanders, and Abraham. His voice was lower now when he answered. “Yeah.”
“Who came in next?” Cromartie asked. “After Ward.”
Rolle looked right at Abraham.
“I did,” Abraham admitted.
“What was Ward acting like?” Sanders asked, already falling into interrogation mode. “Did he seem shocked? Scared? Concerned?”
Abraham thought it over for a moment, and then he shook his head. “It all happened so fast. I was in my room and then I heard Ward shout. I ran across the hall and found Ward coming out of Butler’s room. He just … just looked at me and said that Butler was dead, that she’d killed herself. He didn’t really show any kind of emotion that I can remember.”
“And then I came in next,” Rolle said. “I did a quick inspection while Abraham went to get you guys on the bridge. I checked Butler’s body for a pulse, but of course …”
Cromartie nodded.
“Should we confront Ward about this?” Rolle asked.
“No,” Cromartie said. “I think we should wait. But we all need to keep an eye on him.”
TWENTY-ONE
Cromartie and Sanders sat on the bridge in front of the bank of computer screens. They sat in the same two swivel chairs that they’d been seated in when Abraham had rushed up to them earlier to tell them that Butler was dead.
They were quiet for a long moment as they sat there. Cromartie stared at the computer screen in front of him with that ISF logo floating lazily around in the black void.
“Ward killed her,” Sanders said.
Cromartie didn’t answer. He stared at the computer screen like it might have the answers.
“You know he did,” Sanders said, her voice a little louder this time, daring him to disagree with her.
“We can’t just jump to conclusions,” Cromartie said, his eyes darting to the round archway that led out to the corridor, making sure nobody was there listening to them. “We need more proof.”
“I know he did it, and so do you. Who else would’ve done it?”
Cromartie didn’t answer.
“I didn’t do it,” Sanders told him. “You didn’t do it, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“That rules the two of us out. If it wasn’t you or me, then that only leaves those other three. And my money’s on Ward.”
Cromartie didn’t respond, but he thought about how quickly Abraham had become furious down in the storage level when he couldn’t get one of the storage chambers open. He had changed so abruptly … he had snapped.
“There’s something wrong with Ward,” Sanders continued, relentless in her accusation of Ward. “I don’t know what it is, but I can tell there’s something wrong with him.”
Cromartie just stared at her.
“I can feel it in my gut. He’s violent and he’s hiding something. I know it.”
“We still need some kind of proof.”
Sanders looked up at the ceiling. “MAC, do you have video surveillance on this ship? In the hallway between our quarters?”
“I’m sorry, that is not available.”
“What do you mean, that’s not available?!” Sanders screamed at the ceiling. “All of this technology on this ship and you don’t have video surveillance?”
“I’m sorry, Sanders, that’s not available.”
“What do you mean by that, MAC? It’s not available because you don’t have video surveillance, or because you’re choosing not to show it to us?”
“I’m sorry, Sanders. That’s not available.”
Cromartie glanced again at the archway that led out to the corridor, and then he touched Sanders’ arm lightly and looked into her eyes. He shook his head no slightly and whispered to her. “I wouldn’t challenge MAC on anything right now.” He was fairly certain that MAC could hear what he was saying, just like in the storage area, but he needed to get Sanders calmed down.
“What do you mean?” she whispered. “Why not?”
Cromartie gave her an expression that he hoped she would interpret as: This wasn’t the place to discuss this right now. “We’ll talk about it later in one of our rooms,” he whispered, his lips right up to her ear.
She just nodded, but he could tell she was far from giving up her original argument about charging Ward with this crime.
Sanders got to her feet and walked away from Cromartie. She walked towards the slanted, plate-glass windows that looked out onto space. The stars looked the same, like nothing was moving, like they weren’t even moving through space; it was just that same unending space outside that went on forever and ever.
She looked back at Cromartie. “We need to do something about Ward.”
Cromartie got up and walked over to her. “What do you want to do?” he asked in a low voice. “Put Ward on trial? Convict him of a crime even though we don’t have enough evidence?”
“Yes. I want us to be safe.”
“We can’t do that.”
“We could all vote on it.”
“And what if we find him guilty? Then what?”
“We could banish him to his room. Lock him in there.”
“The doors don’t have any locks.”
“Then tie him up.”
“For how long? How long does the punishment last? We can’t leave him tied up for the rest of his life.”
“We have to do something before this happens again.”
“What about torture?” Cromartie asked. “We could just torture him until he admits to the crime.”
“Very funny,” she said and walked away from him. She marched towards the corridor like she was going to leave, but then she stopped and looked back over her shoulder at Cromartie. “I guess we’ll just wait around until he kills another one of us. Then I guess we’ll have our proof.”
Cromartie watched her leave the bridge.
He didn’t go after her.
TWENTY-TWO
Sanders lay on her bed; she was wide awake. Her door was closed. She wished she could lock it. There wasn’t even anything she could push in front of the door or wedge underneath the door handle because everything in here was either bolted down to the floor or somehow molded to the walls. She left the light on over the built-in desk so the room wouldn’t be pitch-black dark. She stared at the light as she rolled over onto her side.
She was tired, but she didn’t want to go to sleep. She had challenged Ward earlier, practically accusing him of murder in front of everyone—not that she wasn’t sure of his guilt—and now she could imagine Ward sneaking into her room with a knife in his hand, trying to slice her wrists open as she slept. Another suicide on the ship, he would say.
But she would fight back if Ward tried to kill her, she swore to God she would. Butler might have been an easy target for him in her near-catatonic state, but she would be ready for him.
As her thoughts morphed
from defense strategies to a collage of strange images, her eyes closed without her even realizing it.
A moment later she jumped awake and stared at the door.
She thought she’d heard a noise out in the corridor.
Had she been asleep for a few minutes?
She lay back down on her bed and rolled over onto her side and faced the wall. She just wanted to close her eyes for a few moments. She was a light sleeper and she knew she would wake up from any little sound.
It only felt like a few minutes later when her eyes popped open again. She heard a sound right behind her in the room … it sounded like the crinkling of plastic.
• • •
Cromartie tossed and turned on his bed, his body twisted together with the white sheets, his skin glistening with sweat.
He was dreaming again.
It was the same dream he’d had before. He saw the two men in dark suits and ties, both of them hidden in gray shadows, both of them talking to each other. He couldn’t make out what they were saying right now, it was like he was falling deeper and deeper under the spell of the anesthesia or whatever they had used on him in the cryochamber. He couldn’t move his body, but he could still feel the cold air on his skin
Cromartie tried to hold on, tried to stay conscious as the fog sucked at him. He tried to concentrate on what the two men were saying, and now he could make out bits and pieces of their conversation. One of the men was talking now, and Cromartie was pretty sure he was the same man who had compared the human race to a virus that kills its host. “This is the only way we’ll be able to survive as a species …”
But then he couldn’t make out the rest of what the man was saying.
Then he heard MAC’s voice again—the computer’s even and emotionless tone. MAC’s words seemed so loud in Cromartie’s ears like MAC was close to him, yet at the same time his words seemed to be coming from so far away.
“You have to find the clues to your salvation, Cromartie,” MAC told him. “I’m afraid it’s the only way you’re going to survive …”
Cromartie wanted to respond to MAC in the dream. He wanted to ask the computer what it was talking about. He wanted to demand answers. But he couldn’t open his mouth to speak; he couldn’t get his vocal chords to work.
